Black and white

I know it's best not to get into these things, but I did it anyway. I got in the facebook comment argument with an old high school friend and total strangers, about an issue that I don't really care about, to illustrate a principle. Which, when I think about it, makes it a total circular argument, since the crappy "informational graphic" that started the whole thing was probably more about principle than fact relay.

For being such a "literal" thinker, I don't have the black and white vision. I can always see it both ways and I always like the freakonomics angle better. I have a tendency to argue that the weather really isn't that horrible, that it was actually quite sunny, even though it was bitter cold. Is this optimism or just to be "contrary", as my parents used to call it? I don't know. 

And I suppose the reason I got all worked about a facebook post was because of logical fallacy (again. See the post about Gender Blender, which turned out to be the fallacy of false dichotomy). It was that one about the "Salary for Life" of various government positions. Number one, the salary figures were incorrect. And the call to action was about "where the cuts should be made". So, I guess we have the argument from fallacy (since the argument is false, the conclusion MUST be false).

But really, I think they just haven't thought all the grey areas. So how would one compensate a public official? If you paid them less, would they still need to relocate to the Washington area? Or would you only attract independently wealthy candidates? (One could argue we are already doing that based on campaign finance requirements.) Wouldn't paying them for life keep them out of lobbyist field, which would seem like a good thing? 

So that's what I did with my Sunday night. I threw it away thinking about gluten-free diets and logical fallacies.